Digital Medical Records — Letter in TIME
April 20, 2009, Page 9
In “Wrong Prescription,” Dr. Scott Haig correctly suggests that digital medical records are no silver bullet for the costly, inefficient U.S. health system, but for the wrong reasons [TIME, April 6, 2009].
Information technology (IT) improves efficiency with the rules of the game currently in play. If the rules reward treating disease complications but discourage management and prevention, IT will help health-care businesses churn out more complications per hour.
The fundamental flaw in our current system is that despite decades of debate, no one has an adequate stake in preventing those costly complications in the first place.
Steve Brown — Published in TIME
Steve’s comments are correct and more simply stated, “garbage in = garbage out”. No amount of automation will address our sick health care system until as he says, there are incentives both for the patient, physician and all allied providers to stress and assist with disease prevention and health promotion. Also, at some point, society and the AMA have to give up their positions on “cure at any cost.” The idea of implanting a heart into an 89 year old is more than absurd. And the list goes on and on and on…
Comment by Stephen Schmoll — May 23, 2009 @ 4:05 pm